With a showbiz-ready name like Isaac Singer, the man seemed almost destined to wind on the Broadway stage or in front of the camera. But his talent lay in the mechanical: even while still pursuing acting, he patented a rock-drilling machine and a wood-carving machine. After abandoning acting at the of 38, Singer took residence in a Boston machine repair shop, where the first sewing machine came his way. Within days, he made an improved version, using an overhanging needle arm rather than a sideways one.

On this day, August 12, in 1851 Isaac Singer patented his sewing machine. Although not the first one on the market, it was the first to allow for continuous, curved stitching, and the first with a horizontal motion.

That Singer was not the first one with a sewing machine caused a major patent dispute between him and Elias Howe, who patented the eyed needle that Singer was now using. When Howe sued for patent infringement, Singer countered that Howe was not the one to invent the eyed needle either, and that the patent goes back even earlier to Walter Hunt. But Hunt had not filed for a patent, and the court ruled in Howe’s favor. Singer was forced to pay for the use of Hunt’s patent, but even those hundreds of thousands paled in comparison to how much he took in from his sewing machines.